Dance Music History: The Beatles

That's an interesting, if not esoteric take on the Beatles'connection with dance music. Perhaps the more obvious one is their recording of Motown songs on their earlier albums which exposed black American music to a largely white audience, particularly in the States, who would not normally of heard it. As we know, Motown, under Berry Gordy, went on to become the 'sound of young America' and much of the credit for this is due to the Beatles helping to make these songs famous and accessible to a much larger audience.


Please Mr. Postman by The Marvelettes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nuEY6fQgzk



You Really Got A Hold On Me by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2EsZpobWJs



Twist and Shout by The Isley Brothers (original done by The Top Notes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhN-GhH5oxU



Money by Barrett Strong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6xkT7FMyTc
 
Stephen is quite right in that the early beatles albums / gigs are packed with covers and it is true I could have acknowledged those covers. However I think it was really Elvis who first appropriated black music and repackaged it for a white audience - the Beatles followed on his coat tails, so I'm not sure it's true that Motown benefitted from the Beatles all that much, or only very indirectly - I always thought the success of Motown owed more to the new black cities springing up in the mid west and racial issues slowly being confronted within US society and radio no longer being able to ignore the extraordinary music being made, whilst beatlemania ran concurrent to all of that. I believe the first black musician on a beatles record was billy preston on the let it be LP in 1969, which is why my main premise is that the dance connection was chiefly related to advancing production standards, rather than any close ties with the black music of the time.

*In my piece, I also omitted to mention the strong aesthetic / cod-idealistic influence of the hippies on the second summer of love but I felt that what the hippies represented went way beyond the beatles and that the psychedelic-era beatles were a symptom of hippy culture rather than a cause or inventors of it.
 
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I don't think pre-war jazz is that relevant here. You reference white musicians absorbing black rhythms but the mass media wasn't sufficiently sophisticated at that time to take that music to a mass audience. It's only with the advent of rock'n'roll and the arrival of television that that happened. In the case of the beatles their key influences were all rock n roll, not sure you could really trace any direct linear trajectory from the jazz clubs
 
Olly said:
I don't think pre-war jazz is that relevant here. You reference white musicians absorbing black rhythms but the mass media wasn't sufficiently sophisticated at that time to take that music to a mass audience. It's only with the advent of rock'n'roll and the arrival of television that that happened. In the case of the beatles their key influences were all rock n roll, not sure you could really trace any direct linear trajectory from the jazz clubs
Click to expand...

....which pre-empts my next question, are you the olly who wrote it?!
 
30 Years On...

I was watching the ITV 30th anniversary doc about John Lennon's death earlier this evening and whilst a factually accurate record of that day, containing a lot of fascinating footage, I thought it was very light on analysis (something I had feared along with some of the unnecessary populist touches - Cilla? Liam Gallagher?) The director was clearly determined not to give Mark Chapman any publicity (I think he's not even mentioned once by name) but I think they missed an opportunity to assess a/why he killed him and b/what Lennon's REAL legacy is.

I think the programme should have asked if Lennon by 1972 was already a busted force, by now politically neutered, fighting to remain in the US and too far down the junkie trail to really culturally exert any influence anymore. It should have asked what Lennon really contributed post-72, beyond peace platitudes and occasional appearances on the celebrity circuit, and it should also have asked whether Lennon was really living on past glories, happier to play 'house husband' to Number #2 son Sean. Number #1 son Julian of course was cynically airbrushed from the LennOno autobiog, denied access with mother Cynthia to the Dakota Building by Yoko and denied his rightful inheritance. Amid her tears, where were those searching questions?

And of the killer himself, nothing. I don't think it would be wrong to ask what impact JD Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye' novel had on Chapman, who had it in his pocket as he fired his shots. The clues are blindingly obvious, the main character's hatred of 'phoneys' combustible fuel to the paranoid musings of a delusional loner. They call it the oxygen of publicity... Hmm, I'm not convinced someone who is mad necessarily thrives on publicity but then that's one for the psychiatrists.

So 30 years on, I would agree that it is important that Lennon is still remembered, in the case of the later years more for what he represented, but TV docs need to critically reappraise that whole era away from the mawkish sentiment displayed here, because as with Monroe, JFK, Diana and Michael Jackson the posthumous cult and deification in death sadly all too often blind us to awkward truths..

For an alternative view of the final hours of John Lennon, I suggest this compelling albeit fairly sinister doc, which as far as I know is the only documented attempt to get inside Mark Chapman's mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-RI0FT_AnQ&feature=related
 
A nice read Olly.

One of the few areas of music I can actually converse in, The Beatles. Whilst you are right in an absolute way, Lennons solo stuff was not groundbreaking, it didn't need to be for him to be remembered as an all time legend. Imagine for me is an all time fave, working class hero on the b side was total rebel listening for me when I was a lad. "They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool, Till you're so ducking crazy you can't follow their rules."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU

The Beatles fitted together in an extraordinary way to produce vocals like we will never hear again. But for me it's about much more than the music, the whole story from the Quarrymen onwards is a true magical mystery tour.

Anyone who hasn't taken time to listen to a variety of Beatles music is depriving themselves of a magical experience.
 
I wouldn't take Lennon's lyrics too seriously..

'imagine no possessions'

he wrote from his luxury Dakota apartment

'imagine all the world's people living in pe-e-e-ace'

wrote the man who once battered a girlfriend in Liverpool for not having sex

he was a mass of contradictions, warm, witty, generous, conscientious, yet also violent, twisted and very, very screwed up
 
I don't take the lyrics of any music seriously, at least not since I was a young lad! We make them mean whatever we want to hear. Working class hero for me is a great example for it's simplicity with the acoustic guitar and Lennons voice. Besides which my late father used to go crazy when I played it:D


It's easy to pick holes in anyones history, Lennon was obviously scarred from his childhood, was hardly a textbook upbringing. This doesn't excuse the violence but peel back the outer layer of any iconic figure and there will be flaws of this nature.

I have some cassette tapes recorded off the radio of a concert in Lennons memory shortly after his death (can't remember who the band was, will dig out the tapes). The concert opened with the words;
"We do not walk across the road to step into imortality", in a thick Liverpudlian accent. Poignant words indeed.


A friend who is a keen Beatles fan tries to sell me the case for George Harrison being the most influential Beatle during our late night vino Beatles discussions. He makes a good case but I'm not for shifting my John Lennon was the main influence.
 
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